Public Bill Committee

[Mr. Jimmy Hoodin the Chair]

New Clause 16

Local Housing Allowance: transitional arrangements
‘Regulations may make provision for those in receipt of Housing Benefit to be entitled to claim Local Housing Allowance from the coming into force of this Act.’.—[Danny Alexander.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Question proposed,[this day], That the clause be read a Second time.

Question again proposed.

Danny Alexander: It is a pleasure to be back here this afternoon under your chairmanship, Mr. Hood. I shall pick up where I left off in moving new clause 16. Ministers have previously suggested that they have no plans to make local housing allowance available to existing housing benefit claimants, but that position will be reviewed after a two-year period. I have expressed several concerns, not least the risk that landlords will seek to evict their existing tenants to let to new tenants at a higher rate, if local housing allowance happens to be at a higher rate. Local citizens advice bureaux have reported many cases of landlords increasing their rent to local housing allowance level.
It seems not impossible, although I am not a fortune teller, that landlords will respond similarly in the national roll-out and will not necessarily distinguish, in their rent-setting behaviour, between tenants whose housing benefit is assessed under the existing rules and those whose housing benefit is assessed under the local housing allowance rules. That could leave some tenants at a disadvantage. One can envisage a situation in which some landlords would be pushing rents up towards the local housing allowance level, causing shortfalls, potentially, among the tenants who were in receipt of existing housing benefits.
The new clause, as I said earlier when probing the Government’s intentions, would address the problems by allowing existing claimants to choose whether to transfer on to local housing allowance, or, at any rate, by giving the Secretary of State powers to make regulations to allow that to happen. Such an approach would be consistent with another of the Government’s priorities for the local housing allowance, which was, after all, to promote choice, in terms of shopping around with benefits and local housing allowance. In addition, such an approach could perhaps ease acceptance among claimants of some of the changes, because it would allow them greater choice.

Jim Murphy: It is a particular delight to welcome you, Mr. Hood, to the Chair in our third from final sitting of the Committee, where, as the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds said, we have had particular consensus about important principles. He of course alluded to the lack of such consensus yesterday in the Chamber. [Interruption.] That demonstrates again once and for all that there are substantial—

Jimmy Hood: Order. I feel obliged to remind Opposition as much as Government Members that we expect better order in this Committee.

Jim Murphy: You are right, Mr. Hood, because that behaviour was worse than anything in the Chamber yesterday. Nevertheless, the level of disagreement yesterday demonstrates that there are substantial policy and priority differences between the two major parties, particularly about poverty and child poverty. The Bill is an important contribution in that area; I remind hon. Members that one in six of current incapacity benefit customers has a dependent child and the Bill would make a substantial impact on the child poverty measurement.
I acknowledge the comments on new clause 40 made by the hon. Member for Daventry in the debate on new clause 38. I thank him for giving us advance notice of his questions and comments in that way.

Tim Boswell: For the avoidance of doubt, or perhaps to avoid concern on the part of the Committee, I think that the Minister means clauses 38 and 40—not new clauses. Fertile we may be on these Benches; disrespectful and even stroppy we may be from time to time. Nevertheless, our book does not run to creating 38 new clauses, although, if tempted, we might be inclined to add to their number.

Jim Murphy: As is often the case, the hon. Member for Daventry is entirely right. Of course, it was clause 38 rather than new clause 38. I was going on to compliment the hon. Gentleman, but I do not know whether I should do so now. It is a matter of public record that he has chosen to serve his remaining time in Parliament on the Back Benches, and we have seen over the years that he has been a free thinker on the Front Benches as often as one can be. We look forward to his continuing contributions from the Back Benches. He is someone to whom compassionate Conservatism came naturally over the years, whereas for others, it seems that that is not their mother tongue. However, the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds has done very well thus far in convincing the Committee that it is indeed his second language.
I turn to the points made by the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey. The tone in which he offered his comments suggests that it was a probing new clause. As he rightly said, we intend to begin by rolling out local housing allowance only to new claimants and to those existing claimants who move house. Although that is different from the approach taken in pathfinders, there are good reasons for doing it.
The Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Mrs. McGuire)—I take a temporary foray into her area of expertise in local housing allowance—has commented before on the matter. The evaluation reports have made clear the importance of effective and targeted communication and support. Although some customers will be able to handle the transition to manage their own benefits effortlessly, there will, of course, be others who need more help and support. That is an important lesson learned from the pilot tests held across the country. At national roll-out, we think that it will be important to target support where it is most needed, rolling out new claims only, to allow us and local authorities to concentrate our resources and efforts on that target group.
On the other hand, extending the provisions to all—new and existing—claimants from day one would dilute the available support, and would not enable such a controlled implementation, which I know that all members of the Committee would wish to see. As noted during our earlier discussions, a smooth implementation will in part depend on the success of local authority IT systems.
As noted in the 15th monthly operational report, which I am sure the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey has in his folder and would be able to quote from in some detail, a number of local authorities experienced technical problems in re-assessing awards on the anniversary. Brighton and Hove was the first big bang authority to do that, and its impact was underestimated. It was, as one interviewee put it, “almost like starting again.” That contrasts with those authorities that phased in the introduction: there, the annual assessment of awards presented no problems.
In addition, careful consideration was given to the Green Paper respondents’ views on the issue. Although some stakeholders were concerned about the potential administrative complexity, others were keen to see the gradual implementation that we envisaged in the Bill. For example, the National Housing Federation supported that approach. The Chartered Institute of Housing strongly supported the phased approach to implementation, recognised the importance of doing the groundwork before roll-out, and appreciated the potential risks posed by such a large-scale change for 408 separate local authorities.
I hope that I can also reassure the hon. Gentleman about his fear of landlords’ behaviour about eviction of customers.

Danny Alexander: Before the Minister moves on from his point about learning from the pilot experiences, he has quite rightly talked about the benefits of the phased approach. However, as I understand it, the approach now proposed by the Government is different from the phased approach that took place in the pilots. That approach transferred people from the old benefit to the new benefit at the time when their benefit claim was reviewed or re-assessed, whereas what the Government are talking about in this case is not transferring people even at that assessment period for a period of at least two years.

Jim Murphy: I want to say a few words, if the hon. Gentleman will allow me. Six out of the nine pathfinder local authorities chose the phased approach, so the principle of the phased approach is well established. Of course, the way in which that phase-in works has been changed as we look towards national roll-out, but the principle of phased introduction is well established in two thirds of the pathfinder local authorities that were involved in the pilots.
As I have already said, offering such technical detailed advice to our customers has been a great learning experience and it has empowered them to make the transfer from housing benefit to local housing allowance. As well as learning from that experience we are seeking to ensure that the various resources for advice—including the civil service, local authority advisers and welfare rights officers—can support customers in the way that we envisage by means of the phasing that is set out in the Bill.
The hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey mentioned a reasonable concern about landlords—a concern that others may have, too. The lessons of the pathfinders programme should be considered, however, because there is no evidence from that programme of such behaviour by landlords. Despite that, there will be a continuing closely examined review of local housing allowance during a two-year period, and as the national roll-out is implemented the concern that he has mentioned will be a factor in assessing its effectiveness.
We recognise the hon. Gentleman’s concern that local authorities will be required for a period to operate two separate, parallel schemes. As he said, existing housing benefit arrangements will need to run alongside local housing allowance. He was also concerned about existing customers being denied access, and about the number of people who will not be transferred to local housing allowance. Let me share with him some of our assessments of the likely turnover numbers. The turnover rate in the private sector is naturally very high, as he is aware. We estimate that within a three-year period only 20 to 25 per cent. of customers in the deregulated private rented sector will remain on housing benefit. The rest will have moved on to local housing allowance or off housing benefit altogether. That is, three quarters will be transferred over to local housing allowance or will not be on the benefit at all.
I have already alluded to our plans to review the impact of local housing allowance after the first two years. One of the main aims of that review will be to consider options for transferring housing benefit customers in the private sector to local housing allowance if, at that time, such a step is considered necessary. We therefore believe that our approach will allow us to extend the benefits of LHA to all, at the earliest opportunity, while managing the risks inherent in such a fundamental and wide-ranging change in the benefits system—a system that is administered by 408 separate local authorities. I hope that that reassures the hon. Gentleman sufficiently for him to withdraw the motion.

Danny Alexander: I am grateful for that response. I am not sure that the Minister has answered all my concerns in detail, but I hope that that will be addressed as the Bill goes through another place. In the meantime, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 17

Overpayment of benefits
‘(1) For the purposes of section 75(1) of the Social Security Administration Act 1992 any amount of housing benefit paid in excess of entitlement may not be recovered if the overpayment was the fault of the Secretary of State.
(2) For the purposes of section 76(1) of the Social Security Administration Act 1992 any excess benefit may not be recovered if the payment of excess benefit was the fault of the Secretary of State.’.—[Danny Alexander.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Danny Alexander: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
The new clause relates to the process by which overpayments of housing benefit are legally recoverable. The Committee will know that, under the current housing benefit regulations, all overpayments are recoverable unless three conditions are satisfied: that overpayment was caused by official error; that the claimant did not cause that error; and that the claimant could not reasonably have realised that an overpayment had been made.
The new clause probes the Government’s thinking on how to deal with overpayments of housing benefit. The test that I have described—in particular the third element—is harsher than that for other Department for Work and Pensions benefits. As I understand it—I am sure that the Minister will correct me if I am wrong—the tests for those benefits do not include the third element. The new clause probes whether that additional third hurdle is reasonable.
Once again, I am indebted to Citizens Advice and Shelter for some useful briefings. Perhaps I should have stated earlier that I am vice-chair of the all-party group on citizens advice. I am not sure if that counts as an interest, but it certainly makes me interested. [Interruption.] I would not go too far. Citizens advice bureaux report regularly their concerns that overpayments are being recovered despite the fact that claimants have promptly and correctly reported their full circumstances and the overpayment is due to an official error or failure to act promptly on information provided by claimants in a timely, correct and appropriate way.
Failure to recover overpayments has an impacton local authorities’ performance targets so theyare reluctant—perhaps understandably—to use their discretion not to recover the money. In some cases, the resultant debt caused by somebody realising that there has been an overpayment that must be repaid, much like the problems in the tax credit system, puts a major strain on the household budget of the claimant, who by definition of the fact that they are in receipt of housing benefit is on a low income.
Where the claimant already has a suspended possession order against them and is repaying rent arrears, for example, on a set rate over a set time, the additional burden of repaying a housing benefit overpayment can easily tip them into breaching an order and facing eviction. The consequences of asking people to repay overpayments in circumstances in which they have done everything right except understand the rather byzantine and complex way in which housing benefit calculations are made can be serious, and in some cases cause severe hardship to claimants. In that shared spirit of concern about those in such circumstances, I look forward to the Minister’s response.
In many cases, it seems that the root of the problem is the regulation that allows the recovery of overpayments even in cases of administrative error, if the person ought reasonably to have known that they were being overpaid. It is worthy of the Committee’s consideration that the complexity of the housing benefit regulations, the scheme and scheme application process means that collecting overpayments on those grounds could in some case be unreasonable. I hope that the Minister will respond to that point in his reply to this short debate.
A further issue is that sometimes, in cases in which repayment is demanded even when someone has done everything that could possibly have been expected of them, bar understanding the complex procedures that would have been necessary for them to have realised that they were being overpaid, claimants do not seek advice and simply accept the overpayment recovery as inevitable and pay up. I am sure that many hon. Members in this Committee will have had that experience, not least in connection with tax credits, but I am sure in connection with other benefits as well. Those people have to cope with the consequences, which are likely to be long-term rent arrears threatening their housing security and living standards. As a result, they are more likely to get into debt in other areas. I know that the Minister is rightly concerned about child poverty. He will be aware of the impact that such long-term financial considerations can have on child poverty and I hope that he will look at the new clause in that light.
In his response, I would like the Minister to address the contention that, in the cause of fairness and benefits simplification, which we have been discussing, the housing benefits rules should be aligned with those of other means-tested benefits by removing from the provisions the words “reasonably have been expected” to realise, so that overpayments are recoverable only if the claimant has failed to disclose or misrepresented a material fact. Running through the Bill is the underlying principle of responsibility and we have debated during earlier clauses the idea of reciprocal responsibility. It is quite right that the claimants should have responsibilities—indeed, local housing allowance in particular will increase those responsibilities by giving claimants responsibility for paying rent themselves—but surely authorities have responsibilities too. Local authorities have a responsibility when they have made an error not caused by the claimant. Surely they should accept that rather than expect repayment to be made in all such circumstances. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

Tim Boswell: I need make only a brief contribution. I sympathise very much with the spirit of the hon. Gentleman’s comments in moving the new clause. As a matter of what might be termed judicial reasonableness, Ministers are at least obliged to share with the Committee why the hurdles should be set slightly differently for housing benefit than for other benefits. That is not just some sort of lawyer’s quibble; it is a substantive issue.
I understand that to the extent to which something is obviously wrong, there is an obligation on the citizen to do something about it. I will share with the Committee an experience from my association with a not-for-profit organisation. We recently received a cheque for a six-figure sum from the Department for Work and Pensions. As it was mentioned to me by the treasurer, I had the opportunity to draw it to the attention of the Secretary of State—who I hope did not pocket the amount—and we got it back to the right place. It is perfectly reasonable when dealing with such people—the turnover of the organisation was rather less than £10,000 a year—to say, “Something has gone wrong, and we really ought to do something about it.” We can be good-natured about that.
I must admit to the Minister of State that I do not always agree with him on political issues, but I agree that I might have been a little sharper in my exchanges yesterday with his colleague the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington, on official error. I was somewhat surprised by his colleague’s assertion that only a quarter of overpayments related to official error rather than client or customer error. We will not debate that at length now, but the fact is that a significant number do arise from official error—too many for comfort. That is partly a function of the benefits system, and it is important that we should get to the bottom of it, see why it happens and get it rectified, which is the most important thing.
Our constituents who might claim, even more than some of us, to know a little bit about this complex system, are not expected to sit an exam on the details of the benefits system. They also have a perfectly natural predisposition to say that if the calculation is an official calculation it is likely to be right. I am not talking about people getting a cheque for £250,000 in the post as their housing benefit; I am talking about comparatively minor overpayments that are not easily spottable.

Adam Afriyie: I am sure that my hon. Friend is aware that people with dyslexia or learning difficulties have great trouble reading multi-page forms and letters on benefits from local authorities and central Government. That exacerbates the issue.

Tim Boswell: I entirely agree. My wife used to be an adult literacy practitioner, and my hon. Friend accurately reports the experience of many people in that position.
I ask the Minister of State to reflect on one further point. I do not know the answer; I raise it in a spirit of inquiry. We had a little fun yesterday about the error taskforce. The error taskforce has an important job to carry out, and I would like it to do so properly and be resourced to do so. I am not entirely clear whether its remit extends directly or indirectly to local authorities’ performance in overpayments of housing benefit. Administration of housing benefit is a function derived from statute but devolved by the Secretary of State to them as local housing authorities. It would make a lot of sense, given that it is for all practical purposes a social security benefit, if the error taskforce were able to investigate local authorities to see, for example, whether there are significant differences in performance between the 408 local authorities, as I suspect there are, or between the local authorities system and what one might call the central benefits system.
We in this Committee have a common interest in trying to get the regime right, minimising errors at source and being fair to citizens if an error occurs. Trying to tease out the right balance in doing so is the spirit of the hon. Gentleman’s new clause, and I hope that the Minister will reply accordingly.

Jim Murphy: The hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey was right to pay his compliments to Citizens Advice. Hon. Members on both sides of the House will likewise pay tribute to Citizens Advice nationally, and, more importantly, at local level for its phenomenal work in supporting people in communities throughout the length and breadth of the United Kingdom, not least in my constituency where a fantastic woman called Teresa O’Hara manages the citizens advice bureau in Barrhead to great effect.
The hon. Gentleman said that in tabling his probing new clause, he was motivated to make non-recoverable those overpayments in housing benefit and council tax benefit caused by DWP official error. I say first that the Government were minded to treat that type of overpayment in the way envisaged in the new clause. An addition to primary legislation would not be necessary, as current powers mean that the Secretary of State could do that by way of regulations if he were so minded. However, the Government do not intend to do that; all types of housing benefit and council tax benefit overpayments are recoverable from the customer, including those caused by DWP, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, and the local authority itself.
That type of overpayment can be recovered only if the customer could reasonably have been expected to realise that they were being overpaid. Only then should recovery be pursued. If that were not the case, people would be allowed to keep taxpayers’ money when they knew they were being overpaid. That is not reasonable, and I do not believe any hon. Member would consider that to be a reasonable way for a Government to behave. If we were to try to convince the Committee that it was reasonable, I suspect that a series of alternative amendments would be tabled, quite fairly, to say that it was not.

Tim Boswell: We all understand the outlying case, such as the one I cited, half in jest, about a six-figure overpayment. The insidious and difficult case is one in which the citizen or claimant is receiving slightly more than they should, so there is a grey area as to whether they, a non-expert on the social security system, thought, “Well, that is a bit more than I was expecting, but if that is what they sent me they must be right.” That is different from a grossly obvious overpayment. It is easier to see that something is wrong if the overpayment is a thousand quid a week than if it is a tenner a week.

Jim Murphy: The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point, which is why the customer has the right to appeal against the decision to recover overpayment. That is the important protection within the system.
The DWP seeks repayment of overpayments under common law. Housing benefit and council tax benefit are treated as they are in terms of the recovery of overpayment primarily because the customer would be expected to know their rent level and their council tax liability, so the types of wild fluctuation that the hon. Member for Daventry reasonably raised would be easily identifiable within a housing or council tax benefit payment.
I hope that that reassures hon. Members on both sides of the Committee. We know from constituency case work—the letters we receive from constituents and the people who attend our surgeries—that the matter causes frustration and worry. That is why the balance of the challenge is on reasonable expectations, and why people have the right to appeal against a decision. We must also ensure that recovery measures are implemented sensitively, so that the customer—the citizen—can afford the repayment from their remaining income. That is important, particularly in the context of child poverty and family poverty in general. Although it might not have a dramatic impact on the 60 per cent. median income measure of relative poverty, it will have an acute impact at a local level on material and absolute poverty. We should not lose sight of that as we roll out the local housing allowance and try to get the system absolutely right.

Danny Alexander: Probably the nub of the debate is the meaning of the word “reasonable”; perhaps it always was. The way in which the Minister described the meaning of the word was reasonable, and I think that all members of the Committee would agree with it. My concern was that in some specific cases the implementation on the ground is not as reasonable as the Minister described. I am reassured by his remarks, but I hope that he will monitor carefully the local implementation of the provisions to ensure that the reasonableness provision is not used, contrary the intentions behind it, to require claimants to have a level of knowledge and understanding of the benefit system that might only be held by a few academics, and perhaps not even to members of the Committee. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 40

Social security information

Danny Alexander: I beg to move amendmentNo. 168, in clauseÂ 40,Â pageÂ 33,Â lineÂ 6,Â after ‘evidence’, insert ‘other than medical evidence’.

Jimmy Hood: With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 169, in clause 41, page 34, line 23, after second ‘information’, insert ‘excluding medical information’.

Danny Alexander: I shall be brief. There are broader issues, some of which were raised earlier by the hon. Member for Daventry, that we might consider in a clause stand part debate.
The amendments would exclude medical information from the information that can be shared under clauses 40 and 41. The reason is pretty simple and straightforward: as I hope all members of the Committee agree, medical information is particularly personal and is, with good reason, subject to a great degree of confidentiality in the medical system. Without such an exclusion, there is a risk that medical information about claimants could float around the system, being passed back and forth between agencies. That could include potentially sensitive, personal medical information. Is there not a risk that relatives or other people known to a claimant could get access to their medical information through the mechanism in the clauses? It is an important principle that medical information about an individual should be subject to very high standards of confidentiality and of appropriateness before being shared with any other agency. I hope that the Minister can allay my concern.

Tim Boswell: Again, I find myself much in sympathy with the hon. Gentleman. His remarks are of course consistent with what I said earlier. Does he agree that the important principle is that of consent? I believe that one of his amendments to a later clause confirms that he does. The consent of the client should be obtained before information is released to others, particularly if it is of the highly sensitive nature that the hon. Gentleman describes.

Danny Alexander: I am grateful for that intervention. As the hon. Gentleman says, an amendment I tabled to a later clause refers explicitly not only to consent but to informing someone when information has been shared. That is an important principle and applies even more strongly to medical information than to almost any other category of information that we might debate under the clause.
The point is plain, and I hope that the Minister will reassure us, ideally by accepting the amendments, which would improve the Bill no end, if I may say so. If he feels unable to do that, I hope that he will at least give the Committee an undertaking to reflect further on how explicit protection for medical information can be put into the Bill within the provisions on information sharing for social security.

Adam Afriyie: I shall be brief. First, could the Minister say what role, if any, the Data Protection Act 1998 plays in relation to the exchange of such information between the DWP and, as subsequent clauses will show us, other local authorities and county councils?
Secondly, I assume that most of the data exchange will take place primarily on computer systems, although I suspect a large degree will be on physical paperwork. Can the Minister give us some reassurance that the IT systems in use, or those that will be used, are able to protect certain categories of information from general viewing by all people who can access those systems?
My primary reason for speaking to the amendment is directly linked to my concern that relatives or associates of the claimants and customers who have their medical information on the system might be able to see their details. That might be a former partner, or a close or distant relative of the individual in question. The idea that their medical records—or medical data exchanged between authorities—are freely available to somebody with a clear right to access the system, and a need to access it in exercising their functions, means that there is a deep concern about the potentially detrimental impact on that person’s privacy and relationships, and perhaps even on their family situation.

Jim Murphy: I am pleased to have the chance to respond to this brief debate. I absolutely agree with the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey that we need very high standards of protection. I assure him that that is what we seek to do through the Bill. He put it colloquially, but that I do not think that accepting his amendments would improve the Bill no end.
The hon. Members for Daventry and for Windsor made some entirely reasonable points. I confirm to them and to the rest of the Committee that section 123 of the Social Security Administration Act 1992 provides that it is a criminal offence to divulge any social security information, including medical information. That safeguard will apply in new section 7B of the 1992 Act as well as in amended section 7A. Clause 41 also considers medical evidence, while clause 42 complements the 1992 Act by making it a criminal offence to divulge that information. In this context, “information” includes medical evidence. I hope that that reassures hon. Members that it is a criminal offence to carry out the type of activity about which they raised concerns.
As the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey was fair enough to acknowledge, amendments 168 and 169 would limit the sharing and use of information under the clauses to non-medical information. Amendment 168 would prevent medical evidence gathered in connection with a claim to a benefit from being used for a prescribed, relevant purpose. Here, a relevant purpose is set out in regulation 6 of the draft Social Security (Claims and Information) Regulations 2007. It is a while since we thumbed through the documents that we had at the start of our proceedings when we were talking about Employment and Support Allowance, but it is on pages 125 to 128 of the draft regulations before the Committee. I know that the hon. Gentleman carries those with him religiously, so if he wishes to ask about specifics, he can of course do so.

Adam Afriyie: If medical evidence or records are disclosed, the information sheets that I have seen—partially for my own records—are all put together in one bundle or on one screen, without much shielding of other information. Will the Minister reassure the Committee that only the relevant parts of such medical evidence will be disclosed, not the entire file or section?

Jim Murphy: The hon. Gentleman again makes an entirely fair point: we are discussing the disclosure of appropriate medical evidence rather than the divulging of entire medical records.
The relevant purposes are contained in the draft regulations. At this stage, they are only draft regulations, and hon. Members and others can reflect on their contents and offer observations about their potential operation, as they can about all draft regulations that we provided to the Committee in October.
One function of clause 40 is to enable local authorities administering housing benefit in English county councils to promote the take-up of benefits administered by the Department. Such benefits, which are listed in draft regulation 6(b), include those in which the provision of medical evidence in support of a claim is necessary. The words “is necessary” are important. The benefits include incapacity benefit, employment and support allowance and disability living allowance. It is right to support customers in making claims for benefits to which they are entitled. Removing the ability to use medical evidence when appropriate to encourage and assist customers in making such claims would hamper that objective, particularly in relation to joint team activity or targeting at certain customers, including older customers.
Many of us in our constituencies or elsewhere will have seen that joint team working. I have seen it in the east end of Glasgow and in Liverpool. We have already discussed the Streets Ahead project in Liverpool, where different agencies come together and literally knock on people’s doors and offer joint advice and support. It is an innovation in customer care and support, but we must share that information better and make it more joined up for our customers. As we roll out the city strategy consortiums, there is an opportunity for co-ordinated and coherent customer support. However, it will be based on the appropriate sharing of information among all consortium participants.
In some joint teams, local authorities administering housing benefit and English county councils work together as agents of the DWP to collect claims information and evidence, including medical evidence. I stress that people are not required to make a claim or to provide evidence to a joint team. They remain in control throughout, and they can opt to make their claim direct to DWP if they prefer.
Amendment No. 169 might prevent local authority welfare services teams from confirming with DWP or local authority benefit teams that the means test for certain benefits has been met. I am sure that that is not the intention of the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey. Welfare services teams would have to continue to duplicate the activity of the benefit teams by collecting and considering financial information needed to decide whether a customer meets the means test for welfare services assistance. That would run contrary to his well intentioned and well founded public policy statement, and his rhetoric about and intentions towards our deliberations.
The amendment would hinder a local authority’s decision about whether housing benefit should be paid to a tenant or to a landlord. The decision hinges on whether a customer is considered to have difficulty managing their own affairs and whether they would be likely to misuse their benefit—in other words, whether they are a vulnerable customer. Information concerning a customer’s medical condition would greatly influence that decision. That is acknowledged throughout the Committee.
The information gateway in subsection (2) would enable housing benefit teams to receive information about a customer’s vulnerability from welfare services teams. The decision of the housing benefit authority will be subject to appeal to an independent tribunal if either the customer or their landlord disagrees with the authority’s opinion. It is therefore essential for the authority to have a firm and complete basis on which to make its decision, including appropriate—I stress the word “appropriate”—medical information.
I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s concerns. He raised them in the correct spirit and, I believe, in a probing sense. We will exercise control through regulations made under clauses 40 and 41, and I invite him to offer observations about the draft regulations. For example, the effect of draft regulation 7(2)(c) of the Social Security (Claims and Information) Regulations 2007, which are to be made under clause 40, is to permit a local authority administering housing benefit and English county councils to verify information and evidence received from a customer making a claim for a benefit administered by the Department for Work and Pensions. However, the regulations specify that those authorities may not verify medical evidence, as it is not for them to do so, and must instead forward it to the Secretary of State.

Tim Boswell: The Minister of State is helping to address the Committee’s concerns about this matter. Will he say something about the situation where information is properly transferred because it is relevant to the payment of a benefit or where it is transferred for some other perfectly acceptable purpose and is then not well controlled within the receiving authority? In the real world, some of our concerns are not about whether the gateway is passed, but about the situation once it has been passed. Even if it were well understood on one side of the gateway that the information was not to be made available to third parties, when it reaches the team on the other side the security might be insufficient to confine it only to those who need to know it. Sensitive information that started in the right hands may pass through again to the right hands but may somehow leak from them to a wider number of people, in the local authority or otherwise, some of whom might be bent or might find it appropriate to misuse it. Such a situation would concern us a lot.

Jim Murphy: Typically, the hon. Gentleman raises a reasonable concern. His specific point captures some of the worries raised by the hon. Members for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey, and for Windsor. It would be a criminal offence to violate the protections that we envisage in the Bill and the regulations, and the principles of the Data Protection Act 1998 are taken into account—a point raised by the hon. Member for Windsor.
The measures aim to ensure that the information must be relevant, a point to which I have alluded, and be obtained and processed lawfully. It would be forbidden to check NHS databases, for example. These legal safeguards are important. We are extending convenience and better support for our customers, many of whom, as we are all aware, are in a vulnerable situation, and it is important that protections go alongside that improved service.
As well as the legal protections, to which I have alluded at length, there is the additional safeguard that benefit and social services staff are subject to their own disciplinary codes, which carry the ultimate sanction of dismissal for the types of situations that the hon. Gentleman has mentioned—the unlawful use or disclosure of information. Local authorities are subject to the 1998 Act, and information on computers and elsewhere has to be held securely.

Adam Afriyie: This is just a quick reminder of the question I raised earlier. It relates to safeguards to prevent a relative or former relative of somebody who is claiming a benefit, or someone who has been in a relationship with such a person, from seeing their records. I am sure that there must be such a provision somewhere in local authority procedures or regulations. Will the Minister of State offer reassurance by pointing to where the restriction exists?

Jim Murphy: I have mentioned that disclosure of medical evidence of this sort would be a criminal offence and that IT systems in local authorities and elsewhere are covered by the 1998 Act and additionally by the staff disciplinary process. How local authorities carry out such functions and undertake the powers in respect of a “relevant person” and a “relevant purpose” has been discussed in this Committee. Section 2(1) of the Local Government Act 2000 gives every local authority the power to do anything that
“they consider is likely to achieve ... the promotion or improvement of the economic well-being of their area”
and
“social well-being of their area.”
Of course, that includes the opportunity to support customers and join up services to support them. However, they do so in the context of the disclosure of medical evidence being a criminal offence. They are also covered by the data protection arrangements and must act entirely within the disciplinary codes. Those three checks provide a triple lock on the misuse of the information.

Tim Boswell: I am still troubled by a point that may arise from my relative ignorance about the provisions of the Data Protection Act 1998. What would happen in respect of a person in a local authority receiving information about someone with whom they previously had a connection, when they would normally be the person to whom that information would be relayed? Sometimes an allegation is made, for example, that somebody’s estranged partner who happens to work in a local authority has a downer about a planning application. There may be nothing improper in that person handling such data normally, but if they had a clash of interests because they were aware of another person—just as a judge in hearing a case may be conflicted—can the Minister assure us that they would not be the one handling the data? Would he be satisfied that the local authority in question would say, “X may not handle this case, because they are declaring an interest in the person, so Y will take it on”? It is not a matter of an improper release of information under criminal charges, but a question of the person who would normally deal with such information not being appropriate in that particular circumstance.

Jim Murphy: In concluding, as I have said already, it is about access to relevant medical evidence, rather than medical records. The triple protection that I have spoken about—the criminal offence, data protection and the codes of conduct and disciplinary process—is important. However, the hon. Gentleman makes a reasonable point. Our constituents do not just raise concerns about a relative or an estranged relative: they could be concerned about a neighbour or anyone with whom they have a disagreement, gripe or grudge; or they may have another reason not to trust a person’s judgment.
I am sure that the hon. Member for Daventry would expect me to say that this is an internal management issue for local authorities. Of course, we will keep the matter under review as a national Government, but we cannot, and the hon. Gentleman would not expect us to, design a system centrally that would take into account specific concerns, whether about neighbour disagreement, estranged family or allegations of discrimination on whatever grounds. Local authorities of all parties would take such matters seriously, monitor them and interrogate management information to ensure that there are no such trends, or discrimination, and see that people do not take their personal disagreements into their business activity.
I hope that I have reassured the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey that the triple protection would prevent the misuse of relevant medical evidence. I invite him to withdraw the amendment.

Danny Alexander: I am gratefulÂ as always to the Minister for his full response. Earlier in our proceedings, I mentioned the importance of advancing ideas about allowing medical assessments for one benefit to inform assessments for others, to get a more efficient system of medical assessments from the claimant’s point of view—so they were not called for multiple assessments. I understand the Minister’s point about the importance, in certain circumstances, of allowing the relevant evidence to be shared. The Minister’s remarks in respect of my concerns about confidentiality have given me a considerable degree of reassurance. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Tim Boswell: You will recall, Mr. Hood, that there was some reference to theology this morning. In view of my contribution this morning, I can only pray in aid St. Augustine, who I think advised the sinner to sin boldly, but always remain conscious of the presence of his redeemer. As I spectacularly misapplied my remarks on clause 38, I hope that it will be in order if I reiterate—

David Ruffley: Does my hon. Friend agree that the Augustinian prescription, “Oh Lord, make me simplify, but not yet”—might be an accurate description of Government Ministers’ approach to simplifying the benefits system?

Tim Boswell: I am sure that even Government Ministers may look forward with at least some qualified assurance to the possibility of salvation, but I agree with my hon. Friend that they have not yet reached that state of bliss.

Anne McGuire: If the Conservative party wished to adopt a saint, perhaps the appropriate one would be St. Jude, the patron saint of lost causes?

Tim Boswell: The hon. Lady has now succeeded in fulfilling my expectations. I ought to resist further invitations, but perhaps I could suggest thatSt. Anthony of Padua, the patron saint of those who find lost items, might be a little more appropriate? We have found some principles that have perhaps been downplayed over the years. The only substantive point that I wish to make is that what I said this morning was timeless rather than pointless. The problem this morning was that it was clauseless. I now think that we have found a clause on which to hang it, and I hope that the Ministers will respond accordingly.

Adam Afriyie: I am pleased to rise to speak to clause 40 stand part. It is the first time that I have led on a particular clause under your chairmanship, Mr. Hood, but I have observed, during former proceedings, that your guidance is often robust—so I am slightly nervous—but always useful and helpful in steering newer Members.
Clause 40 relates to the sharing of more information between more bodies. In particular it extends the parties that are able to view information from claimants or customers to county councils, between local authorities, with third parties to whom a local authority or the DWP are subcontracting, and between the DWP and various other parties. In the notes and several other documents that I have read, including the Green Paper, the line is that the purpose of this clause is to promote the take up and delivery of benefits.
I am sure all Members will agree that the sharing of information can often lead to greater efficiencies and we all see greater efficiency in the delivery and take up of benefits. But we must also be careful to balance the privacy of claimants and sometimes the security of claimants against that desire for greater efficiency. Of course greater efficiency is what we want and to some degree the entire Welfare Reform Bill pushes towards greater efficiency—both in getting people into work and in the allocation of benefits.
The points that I would like briefly to raise concern the security of data and the relevant purpose. Some experience has come through from the pathways to work pilot schemes. There must be some evidence or experience there about whether the requirement for further data sharing was necessary. I am happy to take interventions on the way if the Minister feels that he wishes to answer the point quickly because I simply do not have the information that he has available.
There must be some evidence that additional data-sharing powers were required. If those additional data-sharing powers were not part of the pathways to work pilot scheme, what impact did that have? Did it have a significant impact? Are these new powers of data sharing absolutely necessary in improving efficiency?
With regard to civil liberties and privacy and, in some cases, the security of individuals I have a general question. I believe that around 400,000 civil servants would generally have access to this kind of area, but does the Minister have some figures on how many additional civil servants and, more precisely—or more importantly—how many additional sub-contractors to the DWP or to local authorities or county councils might have access under these data sharing arrangements?
I will not run through sections 7A or 7B, which were created in the Social Security Administration Act 1992, in detail other than to say that it is very clear that third parties now obtain access to information, which is a concern. What vetting procedures does the Minister anticipate will be used to select employees among third parties to access the newly shared data? That is a key question.
We have already run through the concerns, under amendments Nos. 168 and 169, about an individual being related to someone who is making a claim and the effects that that can have. What safeguards are in place for employees accessing the system as employees of third party contractors?
The relevant purpose for use of information is to be set out in the regulations. It was very helpful to see a set of draft regulations beforehand; I have had a quick scan through and am comfortable with the direction that many of them take. I seek some reassurance though: proposed new section 7B(3) says that a relevant purpose for the sharing or use of information is
“any prescribed purpose which relates to a claim which is made or which could be made for a specified benefit.”
My concern is about the wording
“a claim ... which could be made”.
I am sure that it must have something to do with the technicalities of drafting legislation, but I seek reassurance. To my mind, as a layman, it seems that that would enable the sharing of absolutely everybody’s information, because a claim may be made by any citizen at some point in the future. Somebody may suffer a bereavement or a relapse of a mental health issue and make a claim. Somebody may make an inquiry about a benefit with no intention of taking it up. I have done so myself on behalf of a relative who was suffering from Parkinson’s disease.

Tim Boswell: Would my hon. Friend also like to reflect that making a claim is, by definition, different from being in a position in which one might make a claim? In the first case, in making a claim, one implies acceptance of the rules of the scheme under which that claim is made, whereas in the second case, one has made no commitment at all.

Adam Afriyie: I thank my hon. Friend for making the point crystal clear. This is why my concern is with the wording
“or which could be made”
in respect of a specified benefit: a claim is not actually being made at that stage. What reassurance can the Minister offer that there is not a free-for-all in the distribution or use of anybody’s information, whether they have made a claim or not?
In order to promote the take-up of benefits so that a form for a particular benefit is populated from information that is contained locally—there is a good example in the explanatory notes, or possibly in the regulations—surely some sort of budget would be required. If the intention is to extend the promotion of benefits, additional money will need to be spent. Will the Minister say a few words on where that additional budget is expected to come from? Will the local authorities be expected to come up with it, or will it be the DWP centrally?
Finally, we had a full and frank debate about the use of sanctions when we discussed previous clauses. I have noticed that financial sanctions will come up again in later clauses, together with prosecutions, investigations and yet more financial sanctions. If we are to feel certain that the purpose of clause 40 is to promote the take-up and delivery of benefits, as opposed to introducing a mechanism for imposing sanctions on offenders or for sharing information so that more prosecutions and investigations can be undertaken, the Minister must reassure us and rebalance the equation in his response. Will he explain where the promotion of benefits comes into the clause in budgetary terms and say something about the fact that the promotion of benefits is not mentioned in the regulations or anywhere else other than in notes and the Green Paper, and then as an intention?
Overall, the Bill is to be welcomed. If the clause does what it is purported to do, it will clearly be welcome. We all want greater efficiency so that more resources reach the claimants, but I hope that the Minister can give us some reassurance on the two or three points that I raised.

Danny Alexander: I will not dwell on the comments made by the hon. Member for Windsor. He raised many of the points that I was seeking to raise, so I will be brief.
It was important to say, as the hon. Gentleman did, that the provisions for information sharing will be welcome if what they lead to is more efficient benefit processing and a greater ability for services to be joined up for claimants, so that their experience is more straightforward and benefits decisions can be taken more quickly. I think it was important to preface my comments in that spirit.

Tim Boswell: May I put to the hon. Gentleman the converse? Individual officials, for whatever motive, may embark on what lawyers would call a fishing expedition, trying to find out information that may or may not be relevant to the case or to other matters with which they may have to deal, or which possibly cast aspersions on a claimant that are entirely irrelevant.

Danny Alexander: The hon. Gentleman makes an important point and I hope that the Minister will find time to address it in his response. The powers have to be used responsibly—not in the way that the hon. Member for Daventry described, as a kind of fishing expedition. They should be used to make inquiries in a proper sense.
I shall raise one additional matter that has not been mentioned in the course of the debate. Will the Minister address the issue of how the provisions might, in due course, interact with the national identity register and the national identity card, a benighted project—[Interruption.] The Liberal Democrats have opposed the project on a range of grounds that I do not propose to dwell on now.

David Ruffley: I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman heard the Minister saying “sainted” from a sedentary position, but does he agree that it would be a complete miracle if the scheme came in on time and on budget?

Danny Alexander: It would be a miracle of saintly proportions if that happened.
One of the arguments that Ministers advanced in support of that misbegotten and misconceived project was that it would make it easier for members of the public to access public services. The realm of public service that we are debating is access to benefits and access to support from the welfare system. My concern is the extent to which the provisions in the clause will allow information that is held for social security purposes, including medical evidence, although not medical information—a distinction drawn earlier by the Minister—to be linked into the national identity register to enable claimants to access public services. They may be using a national identity card to identify themselves. Could that information end up being stored on the national identity card, supposedly for reasons of administrative convenience? I hope that the Minister can give me a categorical reassurance that there will be no interaction between the social security information that we are debating and the national identity register, and that there is no possibility whatsoever that such information will be stored on the national identity card.

Kali Mountford: I served on the Standing Committee for the identity card Bill on both of the occasions on which it went through Parliament and I do not recognise any of the scenarios that the hon. Gentleman has described.

Danny Alexander: I am grateful to the hon. Lady for that intervention. I hope that the Minister will be able to give me similar reassurances about how the Government intend to make use of the provisions that we are debating. The Minister is a reassuring presence on this Committee, and I am sure that he will carry out that role effectively, as he has done before. I am concerned about the issue, and I hope that he can give me the categorical reassurance that I seek.

Jim Murphy: I shall try to respond relatively briefly, because I know that we are encouraged to make progress to clause 52 by whatever time of evening or night we manage to get there. Generally, my view on information sharing is that we need to go further in shaping public services around the needs and experiences of individuals, and learning from some of the experiences of the private sector. As I have said before, we should be intolerant of the state’s oft-repeated requests for the same information for similar purposes on consecutive days. I give the example of a part-time worker who is a mother who drives to hospital for her appointments. The state interacts with that citizen in all sorts of different ways: as a mother, a patient, a driver, a worker, a taxpayer, and somebody who might be receiving tax credits or the national minimum wage. We say that the state collectively does not do enough to communicate and interact with its citizens as rounded citizens; we can have a series of transactional relationships that do not in any way match up. There can be convenience for the citizen and efficiency for the state in the way in which we interact and transact with our customers.
Turning to some of the points that have been raised, I do not want to rerun the conversations that we had on earlier amendments, and I am sure that you would not encourage me to do so, Mr. Hood. However, on the point made by the hon. Member for Daventry and others about a “fishing expedition”, we are protected against such expeditions by guidance and staff codes as well as by wider human rights safeguards.
The hon. Member for Windsor asked how many additional civil servants would have access to the information. I know that figures are sometimes difficult to ascertain, but the advice here is that it is a round figure and it is nil. I hope that that reassures him. There are other figures of course. The clause extends the ability to share the information to English county councils, and I do not have a figure for that. I do not think that it is a matter of principle; it is a question of information. However, if the hon. Gentleman feels passionate about the issue, I am happy to follow it up with him.

Adam Afriyie: The third of my questions was the most significant. The key question was, how many third parties will have access to the information?

Jim Murphy: I think that I am correct in saying—but if I am not, I shall clarify the matter for the Committee—that the number will be similar to that of the additional civil servants. This is about extending the current ability to share information to staff of English county councils. If I am in error about the extension of the number of third parties—particularly in the context of the city strategy, which we seek to roll out, or of joint working and joint outreach teams of the type that I alluded to in the east end of Glasgow and part of Liverpool—I shall, of course, stand corrected.
If I am in error about the extension of the number of third parties—particularly in the context of the city strategy, which we seek to roll out, or of joint working and joint outreach teams of the type that I alluded to in the east end of Glasgow and part of Liverpool—I will, of course, stand corrected.

Tim Boswell: I am grateful to the Minister for having spoken—as we have said, the hon. Gentleman is a reasonable person. I am not seeking to force heat out at this stage of the proceedings, but it is implausible to say that the Government are about to share more information with relevant people and then, in the same breath, to say that no one is going to benefit from receiving that information other than those who already have it. Those two propositions are difficult to reconcile. Will the Minister of State reflect on that? I am not asking for a pat answer now. Will he come back to us and say, “Yes, we need to expand the constituency people who have access to that information. That is what we need to do and these are the safeguards.”? We will then be ready to accept it or at least listen to it. At the moment, he is imagining two impossible things together before dinner. He needs to revise his ability to ride both those horses simultaneously.

Jim Murphy: I will take up the hon. Gentleman’s invitation. As I said, if I am in error, I will enlighten the Committee about the specifics. Is it St. Luke who isthe patron saint of light? The provision concerns the greater use of information rather than its sharing. The clause provides an extension of that opportunity to English county councils. I confirm again to the hon. Gentleman that third parties will not have wider access to information under clause 40. However, I will respond, in a technical sense, to his specific points.
The additional points raised by the hon. Member for Windsor alluded to the breadth of the power to make regulations. Clause 40, as with other clauses, gives the Secretary of State a relatively broad power to take into account changes in the benefit system, the changing nature of the welfare market, changing pressures, the shape of the labour market, the need to adapt to the opportunities of information technology, including those in the future, and the changing relationship between the private and voluntary sector and the welfare market. It is important to give that broad power to the Secretary of State. We will state that in more detail, in regulation and guidance, before implementation.
Members of the Committee will have an opportunity to offer their reflections on the draft regulations before the Committee and state whether we have got them exactly right. For the first time in this Committee, I offer to write to hon. Members if I have not got the numbers exactly right. Neither myself nor my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State enjoy doing that. I think that we have written once to Members during our entire deliberations. However, if necessary and for the first time in our proceedings, I will write to the Committee. With that, I encourage the Committee to let the clause stand part of the Bill.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 40 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 41

Information relating to certain benefits

Danny Alexander: I beg to move amendmentNo. 145, in clauseÂ 41,Â pageÂ 34,Â lineÂ 35,Â after ‘function’, insert ‘prescribed by the Secretary of State’.

Jimmy Hood: With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 146, in clause 41, page 34, line 41, after ‘function’, insert ‘prescribed by the Secretary of State’.

Danny Alexander: I do not need to detain the Committee for long on the amendments. They probe a simple point. I know that clause 41 is trying to do something slightly different from clause 40. It is about making provisions relating to the sharing of information for a specific purpose. The explanatory note covers supporting people grants. However, I want to probe the relatively loose use of language under paragraphs (d) and (g) in subsection (4), although I am sure that there is an intention behind it.
Incidentally, I am delighted to see the temporary promotion of the hon. Member for Colne Valley. I hope that, given her contribution to the Committee, that will soon be made permanent.
The clause refers twice to a person authorised to exercise “any function” of such an authority relating to housing benefit. The phrase “any function” is broad and I want, through the amendments, to probe what the Government mean by it. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

Jim Murphy: I am not sure that I have the confidence or the courage to share with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence the information that the position in Committee of my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley is a promotion from her role as his parliamentary private secretary. However, the hon. Gentleman might wish, in a quieter moment, to offer that observation to my right hon. Friend.
Protection under subsection (4) is set out in terms of the appropriate person. As the hon. Gentleman is aware, draft regulations 125 to 128 set out the legitimate purpose. At present, it is up to local authorities to provide for the delivery of such services in the manner that best meets the needs of the communities they serve. The amendment would unnecessarily involve the Secretary of State in that local authority role and matter. Although the phrase applies to a person authorised to perform any function, the sharing can take place only for a relevant purpose in respect of housing benefit and welfare services. I hope that the relative narrowness of the power will reassure the hon. Gentleman.
The clause already contains adequate safeguards to ensure that only appropriate persons are involved in the information sharing. In particular, any information sharing under the clause would need to be for the legitimate purpose of either applying a welfare service grant or for a welfare service housing benefit purpose prescribed under the regulations. Only those persons whose functions relate to such purposes can be involved in the information sharing, so there is no need to be more specific about the persons involved.
Section 123 of the Social Security Administration Act 1992, which I have alluded to, and clause 42 of the Bill would also make any unauthorised disclosure of information made by a person authorised to exercise a housing benefit and welfare service function respectively a criminal offence. That reassurance is important. However, if the hon. Gentleman has specific worries, he can allude to them when referring to the draft regulations before us or do so in later proceedings. I encourage him gently to consider withdrawing the amendment.

Danny Alexander: I am grateful to the Minister for his encouragement to comment on the draft regulations, which I shall be keen to do in due course. I am aware of his previous implication that now is the time to debate not draft regulations in detail, but more the principles of clauses. However, I am now reassured about matters—although that it not always the case. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Danny Alexander: I beg to move amendmentNo. 147, in clauseÂ 41,Â pageÂ 35,Â lineÂ 22,Â at end insert—
‘(10) A person who is the subject of information that has been supplied in accordance with subsection (1) shall be notified in respect of—
(a) the information provided, and
(b) the person to whom that information has been given.’.
This amendment requires slightly more substantial debate because it relates to the rights of the claimant.

Jim Murphy: The customer.

Danny Alexander: I hear the Minister say “customer”, so I will use the new Labour terminology for the remainder of the debate.

David Ruffley: And Conservative.

Danny Alexander: Yes. There is a sort of unity here. We are all customers of the modern Conservative party.
The amendment would add to the Bill the obligation that, when information is shared under clause 41, the
“person who is the subject of information that has been supplied...shall be notified in respect of—
(a) the information provided”—
the nature of that piece of information—
“and
(b) the person to whom that information has been given.’.”
Members of the Committee may have observed that such an amendment might have been appropriate also under clause 40—indeed it might have been. However, the amendment seeks clarification from the Minister on the rights he envisages customers having to knowledge and information about them, which they might have supplied to an agency or Department, such as their local authority, and which might then have been shared with another Department. On the face of it, it would seem to me reasonable, on the grounds of basic fairness, that that claimant should have the right to know that information about them has been shared, the nature of that information and with whom it has been shared.
Given the volume of correspondence with which customers almost inevitably are burdened during the course of their interactions with the relevant Departments, I cannot see an argument against my proposal on the grounds of administrative efficiency because there is regular correspondence in any case. On the grounds of natural justice and fairness, it seems reasonable that if information about me is being shared, I should be made aware of what that information is and with whom it is being shared. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

Jim Murphy: Again, briefly, the hon. Gentleman’s intention is of course a fair one, but he seeks to solve a problem that I do not think actually exists. In doing so he would set up a series of inappropriate and unnecessary bureaucratic hurdles that would run entirely contrary to what the Government are seeking to do in many other ways—occasionally we have his party’s avowed support, but only occasionally—in order to lighten the bureaucratic burden on public servants, businesses and customers. Instead, he wants to create an entirely unnecessary set of bureaucratic hurdles to the processes that we are seeking to put in place.
Amendment No. 147 would place a duty on welfare services and benefit teams sharing information under subsection (1) to inform the customer whose information is being shared what information is being shared and with whom it is being shared at each and every stage in the chain of events as that information is received by those in the welfare system who wish to support them. If I understand the hon. Gentleman’s amendment correctly, that information, as well as a request for information to be shared and the fact that it is being shared, would have to be confirmed in writing with each customer. I do not think that that is an appropriate way to handle the situation. We are trying to introduce a system that will remove bureaucracy, reduce the number of repeat requests and lighten the load created by complications, which would be welcome. The hon. Gentleman has a good purpose and reasonable concerns, but the outcome of what he has designed would add to the bureaucratic burden and complexity of the system. That is unnecessary and unwelcome.
In any case, information sharing under the clause is subject to the usual data protection principles. It is important that that is put on the record. In particular, those principles provide already that the sharing proposed should be foreseeable to the customer. In practice, that involves the customer being told of the use to which their personal information could be put when they supply it.

Adam Afriyie: I seek a little further reassurance before relaxing on the point. The Data Protection Act 1998 is very clear. My background is in IT services and I understand the principle that a person opts into rather than out of data sharing. Will the Minister confirm that when a customer acts as a claimant by making a claim, they opt in by physically signing to say, “Yes, you can share my data.”? Is that the situation regarding benefit claimants?

Jim Murphy: I am at a bit of a disadvantage, in that the hon. Gentleman used to be an IT consultant but I only used to be the local e-government Minister. Our conversation on the Bill can sometimes be pretty dry, but if we were to enter into a conversation on the nature of the relationship between the state and IT and how we use our IT, I am sure that it would be a dialogue involving only two.
The customer would be aware at the outset of the types of organisation that would use the information and the purpose for which the information would be deployed within the welfare realm and shared to make their navigation around the system much easier for them and those who advocate on their behalf.

Tim Boswell: I am grateful for the assurances that the Minister is offering to the Committee. I did not want to speak at length because I am conscious that this is an intervention, but since yesterday, when somebody ran into my car—it was not my fault—I have been somewhat preoccupied with having to deal with claims. It has been interesting. I have had to duplicate information for different bits of the responsibility—picking up the excess and so on—which I concede is irritating. However, I have also been struck by the way that those with whom I have been dealing—exclusively on the telephone and not documentarily—have said right up front, “At this point you are making a return, and the information is personal information that you may or may not be disclosing under Data Protection Act principles.” It is absolutely up front and explicit. We are all anxious for the Minister to ensure that at some point, in training, through explicit notice in scripts for telephone information downloading, or on documents filled in by claimants, it is made clear that the information has a purpose and may be used within the proper principles of the Data Protection Act 1998, so that there need be no doubt. No corner-cutting should take place.

Jimmy Hood: Order. May I say to the hon. Gentleman that that was a rather long intervention, and I hope that it is his last long one?

Jim Murphy: Listening to the hon. Gentleman, I was under the impression that I had finished my comments.

Tim Boswell: Start again.

Jim Murphy: I will not take up the hon. Gentleman’s encouragement, but I will say in closing—it relates to his point and experience and to that of the hon. Member for Windsor—that any person who supplies information to DWP or local authorities will be given a fair processing statement explaining to what uses the information will be put. In addition, all guidance issued by the Department on the use of the power will be freely available to anybody who wishes it. Similarly, and importantly, anyone can request from local authorities involved in sharing information documents that set out their policy on the matter under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. I hope that with that important reassurance, the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey will be inclined to withdraw his amendment.

Danny Alexander: I am grateful to the Minister for his response. I am so inclined, and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Adam Afriyie: I am conscious of time, so I will be as quick and to the point as I can without being peremptory. The clause relates to sharing information on certain benefits under the supporting people framework, which is a funding mechanism for giving money to vulnerable or needy groups in society.
The clause aims to ensure that the information available on grants given by other mechanisms is available to the people administering employment and support allowance and other benefits under the Bill. I am aware that the Local Government Act 2000 makes it an offence to share information other than in relation to a very narrow category of benefits. Clearly, something needs to change, and the clause is necessary if information is to be shared. However, as I said on clause 40 stand part, we must go no further than necessary when disclosing personal and private information to achieve efficiency.
I have two or three concerns about which I trust that the Minister will reassure us. First, the pathways to work pilots will already have had access to certain information through the supporting people framework. What impact did that have on how efficiently benefits were delivered under the new schemes?
My second concern, which is fairly significant, is about the powers being created under the clause. Subsection (9)(a) states that the power to make an order or regulations under the clause includes the power
“to make different provisions for different purposes”.
At a cursory glance, that seems to mean, in layman’s language, that the Secretary of State can make any provision for any purpose. I am sure that that is not the case, but will the Minister explain where in the Act the power is checked or contained?
My third concern is about the definition of welfare services, which is key to the clause and to the sharing of information under the clause. The definition at the end of subsection (10) is fairly vague. It states that welfare services include
“services which provide support, assistance, advice or counselling to individuals with particular needs.”
I hope that that is covered in the regulations, because it does not take a large leap in imagination to realise that pretty much any support service that is provided to any individual could be considered to fall within that grouping. I would like some reassurance that that broad—indeed, vague, from a layman’s perspective—definition will be dealt with in the regulations. If I have misunderstood the legal language, will the Minister explain where I have misunderstood it?
Access to the draft statutory instrument relating to clause was very welcome because it makes it clear how orders and regulations will be made and gives us the shape of the instrument. That was useful in showing how complicated the benefits system is and how welcome parts of the Bill are in tackling some of that complexity.
In relation to the employment and support allowance and other benefits under the Bill, what was the experience of the pathways to work scheme with overlap and interaction between the supporting people framework and that funding mechanism? Was there any confusion? Were there any representations that the two are incompatible? Was there any trouble or rub-up between those two overlapping schemes?
Clearly, clause 41 needs to stand part of the Bill. If the Minister gives me the reassurance that I seek, I will be comfortable in accepting it as it stands.

Jim Murphy: I shall respond relatively briefly to the specific points that have been raised. As hon. Members will know, the clause will replace section 94 of the Local Government Act 2000, to which the hon. Member for Windsor referred. Section 94 allows only a one-way sharing of benefit information from benefit teams to welfare services teams for purposes connected to the application of welfare services grants. Clause 41 will make that one-way gateway into a two-way sharing provision, which is important.
On a point raised by the hon. Gentleman, the same definition of welfare services will apply as under the 2000 Act. We are not redefining welfare services in this clause. That is an important reassurance, and I know that he will take it as such. We are simply continuing and extending the sharing that is already in place.
On pathways and, as the hon. Gentleman put it, the possible rub-up between schemes, I have pathways in my own area and, as a constituency Member of Parliament, that is not something that I have noticed. Others might have their own experience, but we have already committed to the publication of the experiences and assessment of pathways. We will of course share them with the Select Committee on Work and Pensions, which will make its own observations on the neatness of the fit between pathways and other DWP programmes, whether they are provided by the state or enabled by the private and voluntary sector.
The hon. Gentleman was right to allude to the complexity of the benefits system, the welfare market and labour market interventions. As we seek more collaboration between the public sector and the private and voluntary sector and use the opportunity that technology provides, collaborative work will become much more commonplace and will be welcomed more by ourselves and, more importantly, by our customers. Two-way information sharing is crucial to enable that to happen.
The hon. Gentleman asked earlier about the cost of enabling the provision. We do not have an identified set of costs, because we are not putting an additional statutory obligation on local authorities. It is important to point that out to our local government colleagues. We anticipate that as a consequence of information sharing, there will be significant savings and a reduction in duplicate requests for information from the same customer. That is all that I can say on costings at this time.

Tim Boswell: In cases in which the local authority assumes the burden of administering a national benefit, will there be provision for the reimbursement of the local authority, either through the normal local government formula or by way of a special acknowledgement of its work? It is clearly important that such work is done as efficiently as possible, and that the costs should be met if they are disproportionate. For example, if a ring of fraudsters is operating in a particular local authority area and the authority has to do a lot of extra work, who will pick up the tab?

Jim Murphy: The hon. Gentleman raises an important principle, which he knows is exercising the Government. I shall put it in the context of the conversation that we are currently having in Parliament and elsewhere about how properly to devolve the welfare state and how to incentivise good behaviour and ambitious thinking and delivery. In the private and voluntary sector there is a well established procurement process, identified in contracts, and risk and rewards. That is set out in pathways and in other private and voluntary sector support.
How to incentivise local authorities is an important conversation and the truth is that we have not got it right over time. One of the problems by which we are currently taxed is city strategy. As we heard yesterday at departmental questions, the fifteen city consortiums are to put their proposals to the Government by29 December. Within that context, the question is how properly to reward those who go beyond the norm in progressively supporting people to get off benefit and into work, so that they can retain some of the savings for investment in subsequent success. We are alive to that principle. We acknowledge that over time, Governments of all persuasions have not gone far enough or come close to getting the right rewards in the public sector, particularly in respect of local authorities. We are determined to address that in our city strategy.

Adam Afriyie: My final point was about the wide-ranging power in clause 41(9)(a) to make different provisions for different purposes.

Jim Murphy: I apologise to the hon. Gentleman for not having alluded to his specific question. What we seek to do there, as in other clauses, is to draft quite a wide power and then follow it up in regulations or guidance, whichever is most appropriate. Draft regulations in relation to the clause have been provided. The alternative to taking the relatively broad power is to set out in primary legislation a rather prescriptive definition of the purpose.
Welfare reform Bills do not appear annually. We cannot rely on the flow of primary legislative vehicles to continually update the Government’s interventions in a changing welfare market. That is why we take a relatively broad power which we can follow up with regulations or guidance. The House and others will take a view so that we get those regulations and guidance absolutely right. To place on the face of primary legislation a specific constraining power would mean that the primary legislation would be pretty quickly out of date and unable to adjust to the changing nature of the welfare market.

Adam Afriyie: The reason that I make the observation is that on a cursory glance through other legislation passed in the past five to 10 years, I could not find an identical phrase or the same structure of comment. That was why I raised the concern. Perhaps at some other point the Minister may allude to it again.

Jim Murphy: That is an important point. Perhaps later in our deliberations we can return to that. We have taken similarly broad powers in earlier clauses. I cannot recall the exact phrasing. I think we had a Division on one earlier. That the Secretary of State should have a power to vary provisions because of the changing nature and changing circumstances of the labour market and the welfare system is an important and well-established principle.
We can discuss the points raised by the hon. Member for Daventry about the issue of fraud and specific efforts by local authorities at a local level when we come to clause 45. I do not want to entice the hon. Gentleman to prolong his point, but there will be an opportunity to do that then. With those comments, I encourage the Committee to agree that the clause stand part of the Bill.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 41 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 42

Unlawful disclosure of certain information

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Adam Afriyie: I want to make two or three brief points. The clause appears to bar the unlawful disclosure of certain information by people involved in the use of the information. Essentially, it aims to stop the unlawful disclosure of information when disclosure is probably enabled by the previous two clauses. The third party organisations and private companies that may be employed in the use of information and the delivery of welfare services will clearly have access to the information. I seek some reassurance on the controls on the employees of those third party organisations. Will criminal record checks be compulsory? I should like some information on the vetting of employees in third party organisations to which services may be contracted out.
This is a “techy” point, but I am curious to know the difference between clause 42 and section 123 of the Social Security Administration Act 1992, which it clearly seeks to reflect. If there are any differences, what is the reason for them?
My final question is on budgets. It is intended to promote take-up, but the clause says that it will be unlawful to disclose information. Inquiries and monitoring will incur costs, so from which budget will those costs be paid? I appreciate that the costs will not be significant or enormous, but will they be paid by local authorities, third party suppliers, or the DWP?

Jim Murphy: Clause 42 is needed to align existing protections against unauthorised data sharing in relation to benefits staff and local government. The hon. Member for Windsor said, rightly I think, that the clause replaces section 123 of the Social Security Administration Act 1992, which applies to benefits staff, and section 95 of the Local GovernmentAct 2000. The clause creates a criminal offence of unauthorised disclosure by welfare services staff of information gained through clause 39, which is headed “Information relating to certain benefits”. Conviction for the offence may lead to a fine or, importantly, imprisonment.

Danny Alexander: I assume that, when the Minister referred to clause 39, he meant clause 41, because the Bill has been renumbered.

Jim Murphy: The hon. Gentleman is right, and he encourages me to mention that the wording of the draft regulations and supporting material will also need to be updated, because having been published in October they predate the additional clauses.
To address the point made by the hon. Member for Windsor, subsection (2)(a) covers third party employees—parties employed by local authorities. It is up to the authorities to conduct appropriate checks on staff. Hon. Members were keen to see the paperwork that we compiled on the roles of the private and voluntary sectors in future pathways, and will now have had chance to reflect on it. In drafting that paperwork, we dealt with staff training, staff experience and keeping staff skills up to date, and we wanted to ensure that people will be supported in getting back into the labour market by appropriate staff with appropriate experience and relevant backgrounds.
On the hon. Gentleman’s narrow, technical question on clause 42, I am advised that the narrow, technical answer is that there are no differences between the clause and section 123 of the 1992 Act in what constitutes unauthorised disclosure. I hope that the reassures the hon. Gentleman.

Adam Afriyie: I appreciate the Minister’s generosity in giving way, but I just want to be absolutely clear that third party contractors will not be required to conduct criminal record checks on their employees, and that consideration of what is appropriate is in their hands. That rings a few alarm bells with me.

Jim Murphy: The hon. Gentleman can return to the discussion on private and voluntary sector contracting and so on in the light of the paperwork that the Government have provided. He is correct in saying that we will not centrally stipulate the criminal record checks to be performed on third parties. We can return to that issue on another occasion.
The protections provide citizens with assurances that information that may be personal and private, which they supply to those administering social security, will be treated in strictest confidence and will be only be disclosed to others in limited circumstances. I have described a triple protection mechanism. I hope that for the hon. Gentleman, who has been listening avidly to my comments, those last few sentences reassure him about his very real concern that started the alarm bells ringing. With that, I encourage the Committee to agree that the clause stand part of the Bill.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 42 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 43

Recovery of overpaid benefit: Great Britain

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Adam Afriyie: I want to make a couple of comments about the recovery of overpayments. The hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey covered this territory earlier, and it is uncontroversial to say that if an overpayment is made, it should be recovered. However, I have two concerns. With the changes to the Social Security Administration Act 1992, an overpayment that is due to a banking or processing error by the local authority or whoever makes the payment will automatically be reclaimed without a new decision confirming that an overpayment was made. Somebody who is a couple of hundred pounds overdrawn, who continues to spend, as most people do, and who does not spot the overpayment will be put in a difficult position if the money has to be returned immediately. They are already in a difficult financial position, by virtue of the fact that they claim those benefits. I want an explanation of how the new power to reclaim an overpayment immediately will impact on the least well off in society—those who claim benefits.

Tim Boswell: Does my hon. Friend agree that as more benefits are paid automatically into bank accounts, for reasons that we have rehearsed in other places, overpayments will become less obvious to the claimant? For example, my winter fuel payment status has changed during this month. I have no idea whether the Department has succeeded in paying my wife and myself, or only myself or whatever. I shall find out by the end of the month, and if anything is wrong, I shall rectify it. However, I cannot do so immediately. Many people in that position may continue to pay up until they run out of cash in their account.

Adam Afriyie: My hon. Friend clearly illustrates what may happen, and I accept his point entirely. With many benefits paid into a single bank account and with many direct debits and other demands on people’s accounts, an immediate reclamation without a decision on an automatic payment made to a claimant could cause great difficulty.
The clause also says that the Department or the paying body will be able to reclaim an overpayment when somebody has misrepresented the information that they provided. Of course, if somebody has deliberately misrepresented the information that they have provided in order to obtain a short or long-term benefit or payment, that is unacceptable and it should be dealt with appropriately through an immediate repayment. However, will the Minister of State assure the Committee that where someone who has dyslexia, which many of my friends struggle with to a certain degree, or a learning difficulty accidentally writes one wrong figure on a form, there will be a safeguard to ensure that they will not be immediately penalised and treated as if they had participated in a gross misrepresentation?
Having voiced those two concerns, which I trust the Minister of State will be able to address, I am happy to sit down.

Jim Murphy: We are making deserved and popular progress, so I shall not seek to delay the Committee. Clause 43 is headed, “Recovery of overpaid benefit: Great Britain”. It might help the Committee if I confirm that the clause seeks to codify what already occurs in practice. No one will be affected in a material sense by the power we are taking in the clause. The issues that the hon. Gentleman reasonably raises as concerns are already dealt with in practice. The clause ensures that there is no ambiguity in the legislation about the processes for determining and recovering overpayments of benefit when they are paid through the banking system. Social security commissioners have said that this aspect of our legislation is unclear, and we are taking this Bill as an opportunity to put the matter beyond doubt.
An overpayment of this kind can arise, for example, when a benefit payment is issued through the banking system and a change in circumstances that reduces entitlement is properly reported by the customer after the time that we are able to recall the next payment, but before the payment enters the person’s account.
The clause does not remove the need for an award to be revised before an overpayment can be determined, as that is retained within new section 71(5A). However, it will enable us to review an award and then consider the recoverability question at a later date, allowing for a more considered approach to determining whether the overpayment is recoverable. The change follows a similar one in 1996, and simply ensures that benefit overpayments can continue to be dealt with as was always intended. Given the reassurances that the clause simply codifies current practice and removes any dubiety or lack of clarity identified by the social security commissioners, and notwithstanding the hon. Gentleman’s concerns about what already happens, I urge that the clause stand part of the Bill.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 43 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 44 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 45

Local authority powers to investigate benefit fraud

Anne McGuire: I beg to move amendment No. 68, in clauseÂ 45,Â pageÂ 37,Â lineÂ 30,Â at end insert—
‘(1C) An authorisation made for a purpose mentioned in section 109A(2)(a), (c) or (d)—
(a) is subject to such restrictions as may be prescribed;
(b) is not valid in such circumstances as may be prescribed.’.
I shall not detain the Committee for long, but given that the hon. Member for Daventry alluded to this in an earlier discussion, I thought that it would be helpful to clarify the amendment.
It might be of interest to the Committee to hear that about half the fraud against housing benefit also involves fraud against another national benefit. Current rules permit local authorities to investigate fraud against housing benefit and council tax benefit, but not to investigate fraud against any of the national benefits administered by the DWP. The clause remedies that and will allow local authorities to investigate fraud against national benefits.
Our intention has always been that we will balance the powers with safeguards. The safeguards will allow the Secretary of State to ensure that local authorities do not misuse the powers. We have discovered a technical problem with our ability to set out the safeguards in regulations, and the amendment will rectify it. The safeguards will include limiting the type of benefit offence that a local authority may investigate, allowing particularly difficult or sensitive cases to be withheld from local authority action, and withdrawing the powers in case of misuse.
On the specific issue that the hon. Gentleman raised, tackling local fraud activity is, and will be, funded through the general administrative subsidy. However, when we place a new burden on local authorities, funding will be linked to the new burdens principle. I hope that that reassures him and indicates why we need the clause.

Tim Boswell: That does give reassurance, and I have no objection to the amendment.

Amendment agreed to.

Question proposed, That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill.

Adam Afriyie: It seems that a new power is being granted to local authorities to investigate national benefit fraud cases. My one key concern is that it seems that the Secretary of State can ask a local authority to conduct an investigation. Where will the budget come from if local authorities are to conduct investigations into national benefit fraud?

Anne McGuire: I thought that I answered that point when I answered the comment made by the hon. Member for Daventry. However, I shall have no problem repeating it. A local authority’s activity to combat fraud is funded through the general administrative subsidy. When we place a new burden on local authorities, we will provide funding according to the new burdens principle. I hope that that provides the clarity that the hon. Gentleman seeks and that he will support the clause.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 45, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 46

Local authority powers to prosecute benefit fraud

Anne McGuire: I beg to move amendment No. 69, in clauseÂ 46,Â pageÂ 38,Â lineÂ 2,Â at end insert ‘unless—
(a) the proceedings relate to any benefit or circumstances or any description of benefit or circumstances which the Secretary of State prescribes for the purposes of this paragraph, or
(b) the Secretary of State has directed that the authority must not bring the proceedings,
and a direction under paragraph (b) may relate to a particular authority or description of authority or to particular proceedings or any description of proceedings.’.

Jimmy Hood: With this it will be convenient to discuss Government amendments Nos. 70 and 71.

Anne McGuire: We are tumbling quickly to a conclusion this afternoon, Mr. Hood, and I thank you for that. During the debate on amendment No. 68, I spoke about the need for safeguards to prevent the misuse of local authorities’ new investigation powers by local fraud investigators. These amendments ensure that we have corresponding safeguards in place to prevent misuse of the new prosecution powers introduced in clause 46.
The clause will allow local authorities in England and Wales the power to prosecute fraud against DWP-administered benefits, which I have already mentioned. In Scotland, the procurator fiscal will be responsible for the prosecution of all criminal activity. The safeguards will include limiting the type of benefit that a local authority may prosecute and directing that authorities may not bring proceedings in certain cases. We require that local authorities have regard to the code for crime prosecutors when prosecuting in cases of national benefit fraud. We would also, as I indicated earlier, withdraw the powers in case of misuse. If the Secretary of State withdraws the powers, he or she may continue with any proceedings that have already been started or he or she may discontinue them. I am pleased to move the amendments.

Tim Boswell: Briefly, I do not think that there is anything objectionable in principle here. It would be helpful if the Under-Secretary could share with the Committee any information that she has about anybody else who is empowered to carry out prosecutions in relation to benefit fraud on behalf of the DWP. Are there any such persons? Perhaps not. To extend the thought for a moment, in relation to those who provide support under pathways to work, will she assure the Committee that it is the Government’s intention, at least at this stage, not to award any prosecution powers to private sector providers and that the powers will be kept in-house in the Department, just like the decision-making process?

Anne McGuire: I am happy to pick up on the hon. Gentleman’s point. It might be helpful in case of misinterpretation of the new burdens to say that the Government do not anticipate that the clauses and Government amendments will impose any new burdens on local authorities. They are there for the sake of clarity, so that when central Government impose new burdens on local authorities, there will be a principle to deal with it.
Perhaps it might be helpful for the Committee to understand that we anticipate that the powers will create efficiency savings. They should result in an efficiency savings of between £450,000 and £600,000 each year for DWP and local authorities because of the reduced need to conduct joint investigations to comply with current legislation. As I said when I opened this debate, about half of housing benefit frauds are linked to other benefit frauds. It seems appropriate to link the two, albeit with safeguards in place.
The hon. Member for Daventry asked for a specific statement about whether other agencies will be able to prosecute. There will be no agencies other than local authorities and, as the Government said earlier in the Bill’s progress, it is certainly not our intention to award such powers to any private sector organisation. With that, I trust that the Committee will accept the amendment.

Amendment agreed to.

Amendments made: No. 70, in clause 46, page 38, leave out lines 7 to 10 and insert—
‘(3A) The Secretary of State may continue proceedings which have been brought by an authority under this section as if the proceedings had been brought in his name or he may discontinue the proceedings if—
(a) he makes provision under subsection (2)(a), such that the authority would no longer be entitled to bring the proceedings under this section,
(b) he gives a direction under subsection (2)(b) in relation to the proceedings, or
(c) a condition prescribed under subsection (3) ceases to be satisfied in relation to the proceedings.’.
No. 71, in clauseÂ 46,Â pageÂ 38,Â lineÂ 10,Â at end insert—
‘( ) In the exercise of its power under subsection (2), a local authority must have regard to the Code for Crown Prosecutors issued by the Director of Public Prosecutions under section 10 of the Prosecution of Offences Act 1985—
(a) in determining whether the proceedings should be instituted;
(b) in determining what charges should be preferred;
(c) in considering what representations to make to a magistrates’ court about mode of trial;
(d) in determining whether to discontinue proceedings.’.—[Mrs. McGuire.]

Clause 46, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 47 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 48

Loss of Benefit for commission of benefit offences

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Danny Alexander: I want to take this opportunity to probe the Government’s thinking on this change. In previous debates in this Committee in which we have discussed benefit sanctions or conditionality, I have been keen for information from Ministers about the evidence on which the proposed change is based.
As I understand it, the clause will extend from three years to five years the period in which benefit may be sanctioned or lost if a second benefit fraud conviction takes place. Will the Under-Secretary tell the Committee on how many occasions the power has been used since it was introduced with a three-year limit? When it has been used, on how many occasions has it resulted in benefit being withdrawn entirely, and in how many has benefit been withdrawn partially?
In the no doubt detailed assessment that the Under-Secretary and her officials carried out before proposing the change, in how many cases would the power have applied since it was introduced if the five-year time limit had been in place rather than the three-year time limit? It is important for the Committee to understand, looking back, what difference the extended power would have made in practice in evaluating the judgments that Ministers have made in advancing the clause. I look forward to her explanation of that evidence base.

Anne McGuire: It may not be possible to give the detailed analysis of the number of cases per year, for which the hon. Gentleman asked. However, I can give him some information, which I hope will be useful, on the number of cases that we anticipate, based on current trends. That may go some way to deal with the issues.
The clause is about deterring benefit fraud, rather than punishment. We are determined to tackle benefit fraud. When a person is convicted of a second benefit fraud within a specified period—we are asking the Committee to accept that the current period of three years should be extended to five—that allows us to reduce benefit entitlement or to remove it. The Department already uses that process to reduce benefit fraud, but it is especially aimed at deterring those who offend persistently and have been given repeated warnings to the effect that a further conviction would have an effect on their benefit. The current legislation works. We want to maximise the deterrent effect, without it running contrary to other legislation relating to re-offending, such as the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974, under which some offences are spent after five years.
The hon. Gentleman asked for the number of cases that we would expect to capture by extending the legislation. We anticipate that, based on current trends, there will be somewhere between 30 and 50 additional cases per year. However, we should hope to see a reduction in the number of cases. If people realise that there could be a removal or a reduction of their benefit, that in itself will, hopefully, be a deterrent.

Tim Boswell: The Under-Secretary is giving a satisfactory response to the queries that have rightly been raised. Will she confirm that there has been no historic difficulty with the three-year rule in respect of the Human Rights Act 1998 and that there have been no successful defences of the allegedly fraudulent claimant on the grounds that, somewhere, the process has been unfair? Bearing in mind that Ministers have given their certificate about compliance, will she confirm that a five-year period is within those principles? I have no difficulty with them.

Anne McGuire: The hon. Gentleman identifies specific circumstances where an individual may wish to pursue a case under human rights legislation. I assure him that the five-year period does not run counter to that. As my hon. Friend the Minister of State has said, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has made a statement under the Human Rights Act, which is at the front of the Bill.
I have talked about the cases that we hope to catch in future, based on our current analysis. Currently, there are 320 cases per year where two strikes have encouraged us to see whether there should be a sanction, and the sanction was applied in 190 cases. There are no details about how many people were in hardship or partial award. I hope that that is a satisfactory explanation for the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey.
The penalty applied on the two-strikes cases will not change. I hope that that gives some comfort to the Committee. It remains a fixed 13-week period, during which a customer’s benefit ceases or may be reduced. It is not necessarily removed; it can be reduced. Most importantly—this links into what is behind the hon. Member for Daventry’s question about safeguarding rights—those first convicted of a benefit fraud will receive a written warning telling them about the two strikes provision. Therefore, people will be under no illusion: if they continue to defraud the benefits system there will be a penalty with the two-strikes approach. Any right of customers to request hardship payments will not change either. I hope that gives some comfort to the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey.
These payments will help to ensure that the basic needs of vulnerable customers or those with families continue to be met. No deductions are made from retirement pensions, benefits paid for children, or disability living allowance, while an underlying entitlement remains to passported housing benefit and free school meals.
I hope that members of the Committee will appreciate that we are extending the time for very good reason. We want to root benefit fraud out of the system. We have also built in safeguards so that those who are vulnerable will have protection under the new system. Most of all, we will make clear to customers who have a tendency—as I say, we are talking about very small numbers here—to defraud the system what the penalties are for that action. With that explanation, I trust that the Committee will accept the clause.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 48 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 49

widowed mother’s allowance

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Danny Alexander: I welcome the clause, but may I have some latitude, Mr. Hood, to probe a related matter briefly? This clause and clause 50 seem, on the face of it, to make improvements in respect of the conditions that relate to widowed mother’s allowance and widowed parent’s allowance in cases where the child is not resident with the parent. It seems broadly sensible to place that under the heading, “Benefits for bereaved persons”.
It has recently been drawn to my attention by a constituent that there is another matter relating to bereaved persons. I hope the Minister might be able to take that away and have a wee look at it: the conditions for entitlement to funeral grants where there is a sharp three-month cut-off point. If the claim is not made within three months, not only can there be no appeal, but the administrative rule is strict. I have recently had a local case where a claim has been refused after the three-month period, despite there being reasonable grounds for an appeal to be considered and a grant to be made. I hope that, with the leave of the Committee, the Minister will have a wee think about that and come back to me.

Anne McGuire: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments on both clauses 49 and 50, which are linked. He is right: it is an improvement on the current situation. The arrangement is to withdraw child dependency increases as part of the move to child tax credits. The exact provision had not been made, and we have used this Bill to tidy that up.
With regard to entitlement to bereavement grants and the three-month cut-off, if memory serves—a few of us here were around in the 1997-2001 Parliament—there was some debate of that issue at that time. It was accepted by the House that we should have a three-month period when the bereavement grants would be considered and after that there would be a cut-off. I will not give any definitive comment at the moment and I will get back to the hon. Gentleman about that particular issue.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 49 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 50 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 51

care component of disability living allowance: persons under the age of 16

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Danny Alexander: Clauses 51 and 52 make provisions for people under 16 in relation to the care component of the disability living allowance and the mobility component respectively. Will the Under-Secretary give a brief statement as to the rationale behind the changes?

Anne McGuire: I welcome this opportunity to clarify the changes, which will be of particular interest to Committee members who are interested in the administration of the disability living allowance. Clause 51 removes an anomaly from the legislation governing the entitlement conditions for the care component of disability living allowance for people on or around the age of 16. The hon. Gentleman rightly points out that clause 52 is linked to clause 51—I hope that I am not going out of order here, Mr. Hood—and covers entitlement to the mobility element of the DLA.
The changes are principally to ensure that people on or around the age of 16 do not lose three months’ benefit entitlement. To be entitled to DLA, a person must have satisfied the conditions of entitlement for at least three months—the so-called qualifying period—and must continue to satisfy them for a further six months. That is the prospective test, because the benefit is for long-term conditions. Additional entitlement conditions apply to children under 16. A recent social security commissioner’s decision highlighted an anomaly in the legislation that meant that people on or around the age of 16 who claim DLA or an additional amount to an existing award could lose up to three months’ worth of benefits.
The clause modifies the normal conditions of entitlement for children under 16. It will principally mean that someone who is 16 or over who claims DLA or an additional amount to an existing award will be awarded the benefit if they satisfy the normal adult entitlement conditions even if part of the qualifying period falls before they were 16. Conversely, a child who is under 16 will have to fulfil only the additional conditions that are applicable to children up to and including the day before their 16th birthday.
The clause does not change the entitlement conditions for adults or children. It simply ensures that the entitlement of people who claim on or around their 16th birthday will continue to be decided in the way that existing legislation intended. This is a situation in which the law was not quite in balance with the original policy intent, and we have taken this opportunity highlight the anomaly and to clarify the legal position. I welcome this opportunity to explain the changes because it will make a difference to young people who need to claim DLA and will prevent the cliff-edge effect that sometimes happens in the benefit system when a young person goes through the legal transition from childhood to adulthood.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 51 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 52 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Further consideration adjourned.—[Mr. Heppell.]

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-nine minutes past Six o’clock till Thursday 30 November at ten minutes past Nine o’clock.